Bob Marley Archive

Great article from Billboard about the business of Bob Marley. Bless up.

“Legend,” Bob Marley & the Wailers’ greatest-hits collection, is the top-selling reggae album of all time, having spent more than 1,126 weeks on the Billboard 200 and Pop Catalog Albums charts. As the first Third World pop star, Marley’s fan base is truly global. Revered from Argentina to New Zealand, he’s easily the most widely pirated musician on Earth. “I bought a bootleg CD yesterday in Ghana,” Rita Marley says with a laugh. “They’re on the streets like peanuts. I can’t tell you the last time I heard some of these songs, but this guy had 25 songs on one CD. Yes, honey, and they’re selling well. That’s how they make their living.”

“Old pirates yes they rob I,” Marley sang in his classic “Redemption Song.” And as his son Rohan puts it, “Those pirates are still out there, claiming they have rights.” But the former linebacker, known for delivering punishing hits while playing for the University of Miami and the Canadian Football League’s Ottawa Rough Riders, has been helping his family tackle piracy.

Though some estimate that the trade in unauthorized Marley music and merchandise exceeds $600 million each year, attorney Tim Ervin deals with the hard numbers: “Given the efforts that the family employs, I don’t believe the problem is nearly that extensive,” says Ervin, who has represented the Marleys since 2000. (His firm also does intellectual property protection for the estates of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.) Though he doesn’t work on Marley music, downloads or DVD rights, on the merchandising side, the family has been vigilant in protecting Marley’s legacy. “The Marleys have served over 400 cease-and-desist letters in the past 11 years,” he says. “We’ve initiated 30 lawsuits in the United States alone.”

Read more –>http://bit.ly/eOe7GL

(Billboard)